Recap: Inside every traditional hard drive is a component most people never think about, but one that has to work with extraordinary precision. The suspension assembly, a thin mechanical arm that positions the read-write head, operates at incredibly tight tolerances as it hovers over spinning platters. It is a small part, but without it, disk drives would not function at all. That component is now at the center of a US class-action lawsuit that highlights how concentrated parts of the storage hardware supply chain are.
Filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accuses major suspension assembly manufacturers of engaging in price-fixing over more than a decade. The defendants are grouped around two key players, TDK Corporation and NHK Spring, whose components are used across nearly the entire hard drive industry.
According to the complaint, suspension assemblies produced by these companies are found in about 97% of hard disk drives globally. That reach effectively ties the case to the broader HDD market, including drives sold by Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba. While those brands are not named in the lawsuit, their products rely on the same underlying components.
The allegations focus on conduct between January 1, 2003, and December 31, 2016. During that period, the lawsuit claims, suppliers coordinated pricing in a way that pushed manufacturing costs higher. Those costs did not stay confined to component makers. They moved through the supply chain, eventually showing up in the prices paid by resellers and end users buying standalone drives or computers that included them.
From a technical standpoint, the case turns on a highly specialized, hard-to-build component at scale. The suspension assembly is responsible for positioning the read-write head with extreme accuracy while the disk spins at high speed. As storage densities have increased, the margin for error has shrunk, forcing tighter engineering tolerances and more advanced production techniques. The result is a market with a limited number of major suppliers, which is part of what makes its structure important in an antitrust case.
But this is not the first time the issue has surfaced in court. A similar 2019 case filed in Canada, has already moved forward after being certified as a class action. An appeal against that certification was rejected in 2022, allowing the case to proceed. While the US lawsuit is separate, it follows the same core allegations and targets the same segment of the industry.
There is no trial date yet in the US case, and there is no guarantee of a payout. Still, if the plaintiffs succeed, businesses and consumers who purchased affected products during the 2003 - 2016 period could be eligible for compensation.
For those who fall within that group, participation in the class action is automatic unless they choose to opt out. A website has been set up for that purpose, with an opt-out deadline of August 23, 2026.
